Because positively-charged pathogens like e.coli, norovirus, or even Ebola are sitting targets for anything negatively-charged. Remember magnets at school? Opposite charges attract – so strongly that they reach out and grab.

OK, so grab!

And the grabber we’re talking about is also a super-powerful oxidiser.

Which means instant trouble for “bad guy” viruses and bacteria because they’re anaerobic – they don’t live on oxygen, but glycogen. All the time they’re living inside us – infecting us and killing us – they breathe blood sugar.

Pathogens destroyed

So if an oxidiser with live oxygen atoms suddenly clamps onto them, they’re instant history. The oxygen atoms rip them apart and they die.

Misted up into a super-fine vapour then charged with high-voltage, it changes state from a gas into a plasma – a kind of super-gas that releases a whole load more of extra antimicrobials – hydroxyl radicals, reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species, ozone and ultraviolet.

This germ-killing cocktail is exactly how it disperses from a Hypersteriliser – a nifty doohickey about the size of a small wheelie-bin, that sterilises enclosed spaces totally free from germs – no viruses, no bacteria, nothing.

Negatively-charged, the mist molecules seek and aggressively latch onto the positively-charged outers of viruses and bacteria, the oxygen does its stuff – end of story.

Except it gets better.

Spreads everywhere

Ionising the hydrogen peroxide means all its molecules are released with the same charge.

Remember magnets again? Like charges repel – so all those molecules are violently trying to escape from each other – forcibly driven apart and away.

Not drifting like an ordinary gas – remember this is a plasma – but actively scattered in all directions, pressed up hard against things, reaching under and behind, stretching deep into cracks and crevices. All the places that germs can lurk where ordinary wipe-down cleaning cannot reach.

And of course, through the air too – 80% of the space in any room – exactly where most germs are. At less than a 10,000th of a millimetre across, they’re so light that they ride every waft of air – just waving your hand around probably stirs up billions.

Yes, you’ve got it. Wherever those viruses and bacteria are – on the ceiling, clinging to the computer cables in the corner, on the underside of the desk – they are suddenly no more. Forty minutes average exposure, and they’re gone.

Ah! But what about the microbes that DO live on oxygen, the aerobic ones?

OK, there are exceptions, but most of these are the good guys – the billions and billions and billions that play a beneficial role in the functioning of Earth’s ecosystem. Bacteria in yoghurt, right? Or sauerkraut with your hot dog.

Among the odd ones out though, is mycobacterium tuberculosis – as it’s name implies, the cause of TB. But there’s a grabber for that too – and all other aerobes. One that also kills by oxidising.

Silver lining

Contained in the same mist that the Hypersteriliser deploys is silver – specifically colloidal silver – silver particles suspended in a liquid. And silver is a known antimicrobial from centuries back – one of the reasons we eat with silver cutlery or carry silver crucifixes to ward off evil spirits.

Bye, bye everything – the whole place is sterile. Safe until the first one of us walks in, trailing our own bio-aura of bacteria around us.

But even then we’re protected. A microscopically thin layer of colloidal silver coats all surfaces in the room – a lasting shield against infection for up to weeks afterwards.